What will happen if nurses and other professions don't get their pay rise?

[malificent7]

The country has come to enough of a standstill as it is. I fully support them btw....do they keep striking?

@Workinghardeveryday No she doesn't - CWU are not providing strike pay - or is this something your colleague read in the daily mail in fact?

She does definitely get it, she must be in another union then maybe?

I fully support giving you all a pay rise. If you dont mind me asking, what would you do if you left? You must have some very specific qualifications and earn a pretty good wage (I have family at similar levels). If you quit, what would you do to earn the same or more? Surely the job you are doing doesnt offer much options elsewhere. I often wonder what the quit option actually means for some

I left nursing last year - after 15 years and a masters degree I could see this coming. My MH was in a terrible place and I just could bare the thought of not being able to look after the patients how I was trained due to staffing numbers. I had a cry this morning seeing the news with nurses on the picket line, its so sad it has come to this, they are literally fighting for the NHS and patient safety/ Student nurse numbers down 10% this year due to a reduction in applications. 1/3rd will drop out in training, something drastic needs to happen to recruit and retain nurses

If the Tories had given the public sector pay rises yearly, instead of stiffling our wages for 10 years then they would not be demanding so much.

The professions will just keep haemorrhaging staff until we're all fucked.

I think a lot more will move to the private sector or into more management roles, rather than hands-on nursing. All the stress of direct patient care is just not worth it any more. It's a real shame. Nurses have a lot of transferable skills, so they'll take those skills and do something less backbreaking and thankless.

Where does the money for all these rises come from? It's private sector workers that have to pay for it all and most of us will not see anything like a 19% raise this year.

I'm a nurse and I'm looking to retrain if things, both pay and patient safety, don't improve in the next 12 months. A good number of my colleagues are looking to do the same or retire early.

I am a nurse. If the government doesn’t listen to us I will leave. My skills are in demand and ultimately I can get a much larger pay rise by working for an agency. I won’t stay working for an organisation that continues to exploit our good will in the way the nhs has done. The statements made by the government today and their attempts to make this issue into nurses vs patients have made me furious.

Thank you for your support. In all honesty I am not 100% sure what I would do. I love my job and k ow I would miss it but the pace, having no time to care properly and feeling like you are letting everyone down is getting to much.

I recently went to a nursing home close to me to interview for a job, I would be shift supervisor and on a very similar amount. You get paid breaks and meals provided, NMC paid and don't have to pay for parking. Yes I would loose my pension but I need to live for now.

Also no need to stay in direct nursing, nurse training roles are more abundant now. I would likely stay on the bank/agency so even if I had a job that paid less I could make up the difference. The fact is it is not just money, it's the working conditions.

There are jobs out there, the problem is I am not ready to let the NHS go. It really is an internal struggle.

Really, so only private sector workers pay taxes etc?

It will clearly come as a shock to you to learn that public sector workers pay taxes too, in exactly the same way as a private sector workers.

And if nurses leave in large numbers, the NHS will have to pay for agency staff, which will probably cost more than giving them the pay rise they deserve. The posties bloody deserve a rise, too.

Of course they should get a pay rise. If the country can afford to increase benefits by 10% then it should be able to give a pay rise to workers. Time to reward work.

I'm a TA and my union will be doing a ballot for strike action in the new year. If strikes don't ultimately result in a decent pay rise, many of my colleagues will leave because the low pay and morale - sapping undervaluing of what we do means they just can't afford to work there and want to be elsewhere. I assume nurses, postal workers etc feel the same

Are the NHS pensions attractive? If so, I wonder if it's that which will prevent staff from leaving?

They are constantly changing the NHS pension goal posts it may have stopped me leaving at one point but not now

@Workinghardeveryday she can't get it because the union don't pay us for striking. We don't have to strike but also kind of do because it's just wrong to cross the picket. Dh is doing overtime when he can to try and make some of it back.

Yes but they receive more public money (from taxes) than they pay in taxes. So in reality they don't pay tax. It's like giving someone £10 and taking £2 of it back. In reality you just gave them £8. They didn't give you anything.

I don't disagree that nurses deserve a payrise but 19% is too much. Private sector workers have suffered a great deal in recent years what with COVID etc and it's time we were thought about a bit more instead of being taken for granted/used as cash cows.

Why do people think that public sector workers don't pay tax? Or use public services?

How do you know?

People used to get annual pay rises, maybe 3-4% year on year so you kept pace with prices .
The Tories stopped it and now they should be gone as people cannot live like this.
I get worried by the simmering anger which is evident among severely stressed workers and wonder why the Government think that it is ok to just keep saying no.

''The gap between public and private sector wages here is shrinking and is now at its lowest level in two decades.
But those working in public sector jobs are still taking home an average of around 30% more than their counterparts working for companies in the private sector – the largest gap anywhere in the UK.''

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/northern-ireland/pay-gap-between-public-and-private-sector-wages-at-lowest-level-in-20-years-in-northern-ireland-42097548.html

Qualified nurses will earn significantly more in private care.

Personally, I could earn a good chunk more if I abandoned nursing and used my therapist qualifications in private practice. It's just that I really believe that everyone should have equal access to healthcare, not just those who can afford to pay for it.

Strikes will happen, public good will will shift more, people will find it tough to lose out on pay - inflation falling will finally help as you can get closer to matching it